FlatOut 4: Total Insanity

I think the sentence that would describe the acquisition of this 'game' best is that you didn't buy a game, you got yourself a day job. Somehow a game that's supposed to offer dumb hight speed derby fun gives you the exact opposite. The devs of this thing must have a doctorate in removal of fun. The tracks are treacherous and unforgiving, the cars are boring. Fun is punished, you have to drive cleanly and precisely to win anything, no insanity allowed. If not, you will be sabotaged in nonsensical pointless "battles" towards the back of the field while the two top AI's make enough headway to be impossible to catch. Even for 2017, the game feels weirdly dated. Menu's are pretty, but give you a mandatory delay before you're allowed to press enter and dismiss a message. That means if you unlock bunch of stuff, you're just sitting there for 25 seconds, staring at the screen, pressing enter. Almost every corner of almost every track is designed as a trap that either sends you flying or stops you cold. Obviously in a demolition racing game there's hardly anything more immersion breaking than your car being stationary. You have to win. If you don't, you don't get enough points to win the c…

Better than 3, far from reaching 2 or ultimate carnage. At least this one is playable.

Not quite FlatOut 2, but not nearly as bad as the reception indicates. FlatOut 4 tries to replicate the second installment in many ways, such as the car classes, high speeds, absurdly powerful nitro, and interesting terrain elevation. In these aspects it's quite successful. The car physics also feel generally nice, loose, and arcadey, much like the game that inspired it. The issue here is that it doesn't quite reach the highs that FlatOut 2 is known for, and coupled with some new issues such as the crash physics feeling very static and boring, bad car selection, and uneven terrain causing your car to spin in unpredictable ways, it can be a disappointing experience for fans of the Bugbear games. Despite all that, I had fun with it. It's a nice, high speed, all-terrain arcade racer based on FlatOut 2, and we don't really get those anymore. While Wreckfest went for a slower, more grounded and realistic style of gameplay, FlatOut 4 tried to bring back what made its predecessors special, and despite its varying degrees of success in different areas, I appreciate it for that.

Rubber burns to smoke Every wreck fuels louder cheers Madness wins the race

The mechanics are absolutely awful, the car randomly flies off of the track, and it often fails to steer or brake. Also, there is not that much diversity in the tracks you're racing on. Too bad, the graphics are quite nice though.

gg